


Stress

by softly_speaking_valkyrie



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Cuddles, F/F, Fluff, Fluffy, For Kelly Marie Tran, Gay, Hugs, Kelly Marie Tran - Freeform, Kissing, Lesbians, Lots of kissing, Nursing, Romance, Sapphic, Sapphic Fluff, Stress Relief, Tending to Wounds, Wingman Finn, Women Loving Women, care, hand holding, lots of fluff, queer, very mild angst, wlw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 05:39:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14993966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softly_speaking_valkyrie/pseuds/softly_speaking_valkyrie
Summary: Rey is on edge, for reasons she doesn’t even know as well, ripped apart by the outbreak of the New Galactic Civil War and the deaths of Luke and, finally, Han. She abuses her own body, lashing out against the trees of Kashyyyk until her knuckles are almost destroyed. Rose is there to look after her…





	Stress

**Author's Note:**

> If enough people want it, I might do a second chapter for this but with the roles reversed.

Rey kicked at the tree, balancing wrapped foot on the bark of it with a heave and a grunt of anger and violence. Her fists came next, imbued slightly with the power of the Force so that her knuckles would not break nor her skin split open. She punched the trunk of the massive, towering tree with all the force she could, denting it and making the wood splinter outwards as her fist created a bruise into the hulk of it. Another grunt sounded out and she shouted, yelled at the thing in her anger.

On Ach’To, Luke had warned her a few times that anger and aggression were not the Jedi way, that anger led to hate, that hate led to the Dark Side. Rey had seen it in Kylo Ren from the moment she’d seen him for real of Takodona during the siege of Maz Kanata's castle. When he found her in the woods with his crossguard lightsaber ignited and the crackling, mad red beams of it splitting the air with a violent, current-like sound while he held it. It sounded nothing like the lightsaber from Luke, sounded nothing like the one she had made for herself now.

Then again on Starkiller Base, after he’d driven the same lightsaber through his own father, and on the Supremacy, where he’d driven Luke’s through Snoke, and on Crait where he’d tried to finish the cycle by killing Luke, Rey had felt the incredible hate and anger and fear, all of them, every emotion that Luke had told her way connected to the Dark Side. He was seeped and swimming in them, relishing in the power and skill they granted him. Rey felt repulsed just by thinking of him and them. Thinking of the awful, plague-like connection Snoke had forced between them both.

Reimagined seeing Kylo all those times made Rey sick to her stomach, physically mortified at each interval she’d seen him. The time she saw him shirtless made her literally want to die.

Once more, pausing a little beforehand and channelling the Force into her fist she punched the whole trunk of the tree, splitting it heavily inside and shaking it all the way up to the branches and green high above. A flock of birds and wild animals fled the tree as it shook amongst the others. Rey looked up to see them all scatter as the massive flight of the flock flew far away from her and the tree, and she felt a pang of guilt rattle through her core as she clenched her fists still. She looked down at her hands and saw that while the Force had been protecting her appendages and the wraps had kept them from marks, her knuckles were all still bleeding now profusely. They were however numb from the abuse she’d been giving her hands.

Feeling the pain coming to her hands and feet suddenly she winced, silently and cried into herself. It hurt, a lot, excruciatingly, in fact.

The encampment was down the hill, only a little ways away from where she’d been destroying the tree and pretending that she was practising her hand-to-hand techniques. Rey had never thought of herself as much of a fighter until she’d met Beebeeate and Finn. The staff was the only thing she’d ever learned to swing around at bullies and thugs trying to rob her for her portions and junk back of Jakku. It wasn’t until Takodona that she had even tried to aim with a blaster before. She was a flyer and a scrapper, talented at rummaging through the insides of ships and learning which parts were valuable and crucial for a ship to fly. She knew what was rare, what was hard, and what was going to get her fed.

On Ach’To she had actively tried to develop her own style of fighting with both the staff and the lightsaber that felt comfortable to her. And after consulting the Jedi texts she’d taken from the tree, Rey had discovered that her fighting was totally different and uncomfortable to any established form of lightsaber combat in recorded history. She was still vastly inexperienced compared to Kylo, still inferior in terms of fighting skill and knowledge on how to use and call upon the Force. While she had bested him on Starkiller Base, with the miraculous talent of Battle Meditation to help her gain the strength to finish him off, she was now clueless compared to him. And Kylo Ren had the entirety of the First Order Armada and Army to use as his own personal death squad. She was still punching trees apparently.

As Rey walked back to the Resistance camp she felt him laughing at her from wherever he was in the galaxy, felt his now yellow eyes glaring at her and eyeing her out across the stars. He was becoming a more constant shadow looming over her.

The Kashyyykian base for the Resistance was a growing perimeter around a clearing in the northern continent, surrounded by a vast and thick forest that was relatively lightly inhabited by the Wookies. Chewbacca had taken them all there after the loss at Crait and the organisation had been growing. More ships arrived every day from all over the galaxy pledging small and light forces, partial fleets and squadrons at a time to the army and fleet that General Organa and Commander Dameron were building. Rey’s tent, what she called a home now, was on the outskirts, away from most of the other prefabs and small buildings that were a mixture of durasteel bunkers and wooden shacks with instruments and equipment laced through them, plundered from old Imperial storehouses and abandoned Rebel bases of the Galactic Civil War. Rey passed through the traffic coming from and going into the forest for more resources, keeping her head down until she could reach her own tent and be alone. She didn’t want to see anyone at this moment, she wanted to be alone in her tent so she couldn’t disappoint or hurt them in any way.

At this moment, Rey felt like she deserved to be alone. She was seething within and rattled outside.

Rose was working with Finn as they were helping more and more technological personnel carry and move equipment to set up both the sensor array and logistical department in the inner ring of the encampment. Poe was with Leia as they directed the loaders and carriers further in the camp how to set up the various departments. Ship captains and admirals were gathering for a meeting with both of them on how to proceed within the early days of this New Galactic Civil War. As Rey hunkered down and entered her tent, Rose clocked her brunette hair now cut short into a bob with no buns and felt her heart pang with longing as the Jedi left her vision into the brown of her dwellings. Rose paused as Finn continued to direct people here and there to build the building cluster but he quickly saw Rose frozen in place pining at Rey’s tent.

The former stormtrooper nudged his friend in her arm. “Go on, I bet she’ll need you right now,” he told the technician, and Rose smiled, flabbergasted.

“Oh, no… She doesn’t need me right now. She’ll wanna be focused, continuing her training. I’m gonna be the last thing she wants around her right now, Finn,” Rose excused herself, moving around the back of him to see to some loaders assembling the cluster wrong.

She began to hawk commands, but Finn pulled her back to him by the arm and grinned to himself slightly. Rose was far too light to hold her own when he pulled her back. “Finn?”

“If I know Rey, I know she needs you the most right now, okay?” He told Rose in all seriousness, glaring at her.

She her to nod, knowing he was right, and while she was scared about making the Jedi feel even worse, she knew that if she was in the same position, with weight of an entire religion resting on her shoulders, and the legacy of paragons of galactic history like Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi and even Yoda depending on her, and on her dealing with a monster like Kylo Ren, Rose knew she would want nothing except the woman she loved with her at all times until she was ready to accept and deal with her destiny. The weeks since fleeing D’Qar and Crait had done their best to drive a stake between Rey and the rest of her friends, since realising what now depended on her.

Only she could challenge and deal with Kylo Ren. Once he was defeated, the Resistance would have a chance to wipe out the First Order. Rey knew this, everyone had come to accept it, but the pressure on the young woman was now unfathomable, after what happened on the Supremacy, the lapse in judgement, the horrible decisions she had made that had resulted in so many dead. Rey thought it was all on her.

In her tent, Rey tried to pull the bloodied and garbled wraps from her hands to get to the split knuckles she needed to tend to now. She would rub healing salts into the splits and bandage them up, letting them heal overnight, then dipping them in kolto before trudging back into the woods before the sun could rise past the treeline to light the base. Because of the height of the flora creating the perimeter of the base, the days felt so short to them all. Rey almost preferred the long nights, having been raised in the baking sun of Jakku.

The wraps around her hands were sticky from the blood and now garbed, crushed flesh of knuckles. Removal now felt like Rey was pulling them from her hands and the pain was shooting from the wounds.

After trying to prey one of the wraps away she pulled at the bloodied skin, and slammed her hand down on her weapons crafting bench, biting her lip harshly. Items and furniture rose and fell violently as Rey instinctively snapped the Force around the room in her incredible pain. Her hands felt on fire from the insane twang of hurt. Her lip felt hot too, and blood began dripping from it as she reeled her teeth back. Now that was bleeding too and Rey slammed her fists onto the bench again in fury. She was stupid, idiotic, she knew what punching the tree in her anger would do. Why didn’t she just use a bag? Something to box against? Why did she have to test nature? Try to win over the environment? Even Master Luke didn’t have to tell her that as a Jedi, nature should be respected and treated accordingly, protected and served like any sentient thing. She was no Jedi and felt as if she never would be.

Rey felt too far behind, and utterly outmatched.

“Rey?”

“Rose? Is that you?” Rey called out, covering her knuckles the best she could and looking to the flap of the tent. Rose’s adorable face came out from under it, not smiling but looking heavily concerned, pained by any pain that Rey might have been in. Had she heard the constant thudding of hands on the bench? The rise and fall of everything around Rey as the Force flew through her and acted on her instinct?

The Jedi felt her heart flutter as soon as she saw Rose. She had wanted to be alone to seethe in her melancholic anger and annoyance at herself, but Rose was a ray of sunshine coming to wash her over from all her negativity.

Rose forced a smile as she saw Rey, climbing inside the tent and looking around at the disarray of the small living space. “Are you okay? I heard things dropping, is something wrong?” Rose checked, coming closer to Rey and looking at her, seeing the small drops of blood inside of her mouth, trying to drip from her lip. She also saw the smears of blood on the wood of the weapons bench among the precarious pieces that were Rey’s makeshift, new lightsaber.

When Rey paused to answer, Rose’s face grew even sadder. “Rey? Are you… Are you okay? Do you need me to…”

Rey removed one hand from the other and turned them both over so Rose could see the bloodied and beaten knuckles and Rose gasped. She almost fell to her knees as she doted on Rey’s hands, seeing to them and looking around the room to see for some water. Rey had a small basin of it close to her bed. The technician rushed over to it and grabbed it, bringing it to the bench and tenderly dropping Rey’s damaged palms into it, softening her wounds and washing the blood from the wraps.

“It’s gonna be okay now. I’ve got you, okay?” Rose told her clearly, just as Rey began to tremble and whimper a little more. She closed her eyes as the pang of the cold water licked her wounds painfully. “We’ll get these healed quickly, I have some bacta with me,” Rose told her and got to work lifting the now wet cloth wraps from Rey’s knuckles so she could spray the bacta on her belt over them.

Almost crying, Rey nuzzled her head into Rose’s body, close to her bosom under the brown-yellow of her jumpsuit. “You’re not going to ask how I did this?” Rey asked her, her voice a flutter and her eyes welling and deeply saddened by her own sorry state. The anger inside of her broke like a damn to let would the terrible sadness she had been concealing from everyone. About Luke, about Han, about the Resistance, everything. Rey was grieving for a life she had only just entered. Her hope was faltering.

Rose looked at her incredulously. “Why would ask? I don’t think it matters. You’re a Jedi, and you’re the best of us. You’re under a lot of stress and I’m here for you Rey, no matter what. You have me, always, okay?” Rose checked, and Rey strenuously flexed a smile for her, her eyes still glassy from welling tears. They hadn’t spoken much about their relationship since they’d arrived on Kashyyyk, Rey had been too much a mix with emotions over the constant running. Even flying the Falcon over halfway across the entire galaxy over the course of weeks, stopping, again and again, to feed and fuel the ship and the crew was a milestone in stress and anguish.

When they had hit Fondor looking for a place to hide, Rey and Rose had felt drawn to each other. The smaller of the two was still recovering for almost dying when she saved Finn from the Death Star Cannon. But Rey helped her heal in the Falcon, and the two had simply happened in no time at all. Upon arriving on Kashyyyk, everything finally seemed to hit Rey, and now she felt like most days she woke pissed off an angry at the whole universe. Rose was patient, and kind and all things lovely enveloped in the shell of a person. The tell of her generous eyes and heart told Finn, especially that she had fallen in love with Rey rather rapidly.

Soaking Rey’s hands in the water still, running her own fingers over the bruised knuckles softly to rinse the blood from the wounds, Rose leaned over and kissed Rey on her forehead. “Just leave it all to me, okay?” She asked, tenderly, nursing the woman she loved.

Rey looked vacant, pausing before speaking and eyeing Rose’s lips wonderingly. Without feeling anything except the luscious draw of the girl. She felt her heard tug inside of her, pushing her forward, leaning closer to Rose all the more, and the smaller woman saw it, saw Rey coming forward, standing up slowly and keeping her hands in the basin, suddenly turning and holding Rose’s in hers. She leaned in and kissed Rose on her plump and lovely lips, just a soft peck, but then they locked eyes, fixating on the other. Rose leaned up again and kissed Rey back, deeper and more passionately, making the taller woman from Nowhere close her eyes as she drifted off to some happier place now that Rose was kissing her softly. The texture of her gorgeous lips was pleasant and irresistible, even bubbly they had such curvature that was to be felt as Rey kissed back. They took their time as they kissed, Rose still rubbing her lover’s hands in the water and washing away the blood and anger from Rey. She washed out the fear and the hated. All thoughts of the monster that was Kylo Ren were lifted up out of the woman and she felt so much lighter, so much more filled with positive emotions and adoration from the smaller woman as they kissed all the more. Their lips parted and Rey found herself smiling a small grin. She kissed Rose’s petite and button-like nose softly and the technician giggled instinctively, standing on her tiptoes to do the same to Rey, kissing her nose.

“Every time I see you, I always find myself smiling,” Rey told Rose, both of them grinning. Rose was utterly adorable when she smiled, which was not nearly often enough lately.

Rose chuckled again as she lifted Rey’s hands out of the basin and looked them over in her own, examining them and the marks on her knuckles. The splits in her skin were deep and the bones had been dented and almost cracked. “Guess that means you’ll just have to see me some more, huh?” She asked Rey as she looked into her beautiful eyes again. “Because you definitely don’t smile enough right now. And you should… You’re gorgeous.”

Rey felt herself blushing slightly as Rose pulled the spray chamber from her belt and a small vial of bacta from another pouch. Rey spotted the small stunner and various other devices used for scrubbing and maintaining anything. Ships and buildings and other places that needed a lot of care. It seemed that Rose was a technician for people too because she was caring expertly for Rey as well. She loaded the bacta vial into the canister and held Rey’s hands cautiously one of her own.

“This might sting a bit. Brace yourself,” she warned Rey and began to spray the regenerative bacta onto her knuckles and the rest of her hands, dousing them in the very light-blue liquid. It was as viscous as water and fine like it too, but the sting was there, not painless to Rey - she had hurt her hands and feet in the inner workings of starships on Jakku and had almost lost fingers and whole hands plenty of times. This didn’t hurt, it was refreshing.

After that was done, Rose then pulled a roll of bandage and began to weave the cloths around Rey’s paws, lacing her knuckles and covering them, sealing the bacta around them as best she could. Bacta worked both faster and more effectively than Kolto, it was the good stuff. Rey would be back in fighting shape in no time, her hands would be fine to continue working on her new lightsaber, following the instructions in the books.

“Now, do one thing for me?” Rose asked, still smiling organically as she finished helping Rey’s hands and clasping them together in her own hands.

“What’s that?” Rey inquired.

Rose kissed her again suddenly, a deep and lingering kiss on her lips and propping her hands on Rey’s exposed shoulders. Rey’s own palms instinctively reached for Rose’s waist and she held her closely. “Don’t go punching trees again for a couple days. Okay? You can’t be a Jedi if you can’t punch the bad guys…”

Rey grinned and kissed Rose again, deeply and lovingly, both of them feeling like children sneaking off for a private kiss away from the boys playing with their toy soldiers. They took their time, holding each other tightly, their hearts beating quickly they were like buzzing bees together, making sweet and soft love in a secret cove. Rey’s tent was small enough to feel warm and cosy as they stood in it. Chewbacca had helped her set it up before he returned to his village for a while, seeing to things. Rey felt tingles in her bare toes and she crinkled her nose as Rose kissed her and hugged her, wrapping arms around her collar. These feelings were all that Rose adored.

They broke off for a moment, enough to break and for Rey to smile. They were both helpless for each other, for the way they made each other feel. They nuzzled noses.

“Do you… Want to stay for a bit? Or… The night? I mean it’ll be night soon, and that if you wanted to stay here, with me, for the night… You know you could…”

Rose quickly kissed Rey once more.

“I’d love to… Always.”


End file.
